City Diary: Sugar says: you could be hired as Apprentice spills the beans

What was Lord Alan Sugar doing as 2010 Apprentice winner Stella English pursued her constructive dismissal claim against the business mogul? Looking to hire more staff, of course.

“Interested in leading Amscreen’s health care and pharmaceutical sales division?” wondered Sugar in one of a flurry of tweets advertising the post, as Ms English told an employment tribunal that she was treated like an “overpaid lackey” in her £100k job at IT supplier Viglen.

“I didn’t feel [that] to go through all that and to drop out was a real option,” Ms English continued to the East London Employment Tribunal Service yesterday. And what was keeping Sugar busy then?

Old habits die hard. Still on Lord Sugar, the Apprentice boss just can’t let go of his role at YouView — his Twitter profile still tells his 2.75m followers that he is chairman of the internet TV service, despite his exit last week after a bust-up with Richard Desmond. Will Carphone Warehouse founder Sir Charles Dunstone, who has temporarily taken over the position, set the record straight?

Rudd’s star guests for opera

Politics, high drama and a fateful conclusion. Not the Glencore-Xstrata merger saga, but the plot of Tosca — sponsored by Xstrata — which opened at the Royal Opera House last weekend.

Art may also imitate life for the City grandees invited to the opera by Roland Rudd, who is supporting the production in a personal capacity and through his WPP-owned PR agency RLM Finsbury.

Rudd’s camp would not reveal which of the well-connected PR man’s associates — who include ex-BP boss Tony Hayward and easyJet chief Carolyn McCall — will be watching from the Royal Box.

But Rudd himself will be in the audience on a number of occasions. Tosca is one of his favourite tragedies, Diary hears.

Elsewhere in Covent Garden, it will be curtain up on the next CEO of the Royal Opera House “any minute”. “Well, not any minute,” hedged a spokesman on the successor for Lord Tony Hall as he departs to replace George Entwistle as head of the BBC. “We always said we hoped to announce Tony’s successor before he leaves at the end of March, and we are still working to that timetable.” Rumoured to be hovering in the wings are former culture secretary Chris Smith and the piano-playing Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.

Striking contrast at John Lewis

Timing is everything. As John Lewis this morning unveils its bonuses for partners, after a Christmas when sales topped £680m, the union representing the cleaners at the company’s Oxford Street store are threatening to strike over pay.

The outsourced contractors, who are employed by Integrated Cleaning Management — and not John Lewis, which tells Diary it hopes the situation can be resolved amicably — reportedly earn £6.72 an hour and are demanding the London Living Wage of £8.55.

Never knowingly undersold?

An entertainingly pointed “Thought of the Day” on the Forbes website the day after Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal accused the magazine of significantly undervaluing his fortune in its latest billionaires list. “The respect of those you respect is worth more than the applause of the multitude."

Lord Fink gets The Global Party started

The self-styled “social event of the decade” is back.

After a two-year absence, The Global Party, the coordinated worldwide fundraiser that claims to be “the largest private charity event ever held”, will return over three days at the end of June.

The organisers — hedge fund godfather Lord Stanley Fink with entrepreneur David Johnstone — are plotting more than 360 parties in 120-plus cities around the world. “Hot tips” for the 2013 venues include the Four Seasons in Marrakesh and the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai.